If you can’t make em, steal em. Professional wrestling and mixed martial arts seem to go hand in hand. There have certainly been successful (and unsuccessful) names moving from one side of the spectrum to the other and WWE seems interested in seeing what they can do with bringing in more mixed martial artists. It turns out they were taking a shot at a big name and opening their wallets to get him.

Chael Sonnen recently appeared on the Ariel Helwani MMA Show and discussed an offer made to him by WWE before his 2012 fight against Anderson Silva at UFC 148. Sonnen says that he was offered $1 million to skip the fight and show up on Monday Night Raw instead, or $5 million to show up with the UFC Middleweight Title should he win the belt. Sonnen did not show up in WWE, nor did he win the fight in the first place.

There’s a lot here and Sonnen is a great storyteller. Check out the full interview right here:

Opinion: Would this really be that far out of the realm of possibility? Sonnen is a longtime wrestling fan and has appeared on several wrestling events before, so WWE being interested in a professional athlete with incredible talking abilities and a love of wrestling isn’t hard to imagine. Sonnen is probably lucky that he didn’t take the deal, but it could have been interesting if he did.

Would Sonnen have worked in WWE? Will he ever appear there? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the History Of In Your House.

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